Hermon Hitson - Let The Gods Sing

In the music business, there are certain sidemen players who back the stars who play with such prowess that they gain fame of their own. By all rights, Hermon Hitson should be one of those people. Over the years, he played with Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Joe Tex, Bobby Womack, Wilson Pickett, Garnet Mimms, Major Lance, Jackie Wilson, the Drifters, the Shirelles, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters and many others. I played behind Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke on the same doggone show, he said, recalling one night at the Royal Peacock. Along the way, he picked up every style of music that was popular in the early years of his career. Arguably, the original seeds of psychedelic rock were planted after Hitson and Hendrix became running buddies in the early 1960s. Both were playing the Chitlin Circuit, tours that would load somewhere between ten and two dozen African American musicians on a bus and tour the South, playing Black nightclubs. The two spent weeks together, Hermon says. As the 1970s rolled in, Hermon wound up playing funk guitar, recording some tracks with the Ohio Players and releasing some of his own funk singles, including the powerful Aint No Other Way, a number firmly in the James Brown vein which he reprised on Let The Gods Sing. In the mid-1960s, he moved to New York City, where he once again hooked up with Hendrix. Early in 1966, Hermon began work on his own psychedelic rock album under the title Free Spirit. Hermon sang and played lead guitar, and Hendrix played bass on a few tracks that went unreleased by ATCO at the time. Those recordings wound up being the source of a controversy in the 1980s that brought Hermons name into the limelight in a different way. The title song of the album, Free Spirit, was released on two albums of music allegedly recorded by Hendrix and then lost to history. Thats my song, Hermon says today. "He [Hendrix] didnt never play no lead on nothing of mine. And he didnt sing on nothing of mine. In fact, back then he thought he couldnt sing. We had to keep pushing him". Jimi would say, I cant sing. Id say, Man, you dont have to be Wilson Pickett. All you got to do is sing like you sing. Recorded and co-produced by Bruce Watson at his Delta Sounds Studio in Memphis, Hitsons backed on the new album by guitarist and co-producer Will Sexton and some of Memphis best musicians.

TRACKS
Let The Gods Sing
Aint No Other Way
Backdoor Man
All I Want Is You
Feast of Ants
Suspicious
Shes a Bad Girl
Stray Bullet
Yampertown Funk